Never Break This Promise
by Nayuki-Bunny
Summary: She's been counting the days and watching for signs. He still hasn't come and she's still cursing her young heart.


_Once you meet someone, you never really forget them. It just takes a while for your memory to come back to you._

* * *

><p><strong>[I don't know how to count so far]<strong>

She watches the lips bend and pucker with the syllables, pulling faint creases around the mouth and beside the eyes. Then the features rearrange into a frown, the furrows deepening as her gaze narrows.

The woman is old, she notices. Older. She hadn't been expecting that.

But she is staring at her, through her, so that she feels as though they know each other, separated only by the disbelief in her mind and the disappointment on her tongue.

_Who are you?_ she wants to ask, scared by the intimacy of this woman's lingering gaze. Her hand reaches to touch the foreign fingertips, colliding with cool glass.

"Chihiro," she whispers to her reflection. "That's your name and don't forget it."

Because if she forgets it, she can't rely on him to remind her again.

**[7,345]**

They're here again. She bites her lip and sneaks a look to her right.

The little girl is swinging her legs so that her feet skim just-so over the surface of the black water. Her eyes are focused on her scuffed sneakers for lack of something better to say. At times, she absentmindedly reaches up to touch her ponytail, then lets the hand drop to her side to clutch at her shirt self-consciously.

She looks away from the girl and toward the brightly colored lights in the distance, skin prickling with the cold of the mossy stone beneath her. The silence between them, punctuated with the distant sounds of drums and laughter from ghostly voices, stretches with tension until she fears it will snap. She inhales sharply, holding her breath and tensing. It's become a bit of a nervous habit.

"How long are we going to wait?" she finally asks, exhaling the words with her pent-up air and frustration.

When the girl doesn't respond, she frowns minutely and glances over to scrutinize the too big t-shirt and too thin legs. Sensing her shift in attention, the girl stops swinging her legs and tightens her hands into fists. Then, suddenly, she raises her chin almost defiantly, her eyes flashing.

She can feel the breath catch in her throat, rustling with words and emotion, but it withers away as the girl searches her face. Lips part.

"…as long as I need to," the girl replies. "As long as we need to."

This is where she always wakes up.

**[3,672]**

The air here smells familiar. Like forgotten wishes and forgotten names.

She watches the water ripple and dance around her knees. Years of persistence have burrowed holes and widened gaps so that the water can escape more fully, but the river is still blocked up. Mossy stones remain heaped in an untidy pile, stopping the flow of water.

Her hands are streaked with angry bruises and scratches, but stone is stone. Unyielding.

"Find a way," she whispers.

And her heart still seizes with the same old pain when there is no response, and her eyes still ache with the strain of looking too far behind.

**[2,555]**

The words look cramped and strange on the paper, but she writes on, drawing the pen up and down and sideways, pausing at regular intervals to reread her words.

"It's all wrong," she mutters, her eyes fluttering half-shut in the lamplight. Then she blinks rapidly, shaking off clinging traces of sleep, and closes her eyes for a moment.

_It tasted like tears, smelled like night clouds, and there was wind singing in her ears. She fumbled blindly, but caught his hand, their fingers twining together. _

_Don't let go, she wanted to say, but swallowed her words to hear his, squeezing his hands._

_And she was smiling so widely, so happy that she was falling: falling down, falling fast, falling in-_

Her eyes open slightly to focus out the window. "The moon is full again tonight," she breathes to the stillness of her room. The shadows stretch in response, brushing at the curtains with silhouettes of dragon claws and paper arms.

**[1,523]**

"Hey."

"Mhm."

"I have a silly question."

"Mhm."

"Do you believe in spirits?"

"Ehh?"

"Water spirits and things."

"Honestly, you say the weirdest things sometimes! You're lucky we're friends, or-"

"-Do you?"

She said it was a silly question, but Chihiro's face is serious, really serious, and you're kinda shaken because sure, she's a bit weird, staring off into space a lot and doodling funny things, but that disappears when you talk about art club and homework and normal things. You glance up from your twisting hands. Chihiro's still waiting and she looks like she wants an answer, like, _really_ wants an answer. Like your answer will mean something. Something big. You swallow.

"…I-I don't know. Maybe? Probably not…"

Chihiro doesn't ask you again and that's probably a good thing.

**[1,080]**

She's peeling carrots in the kitchen, absently thinking of glittering rings and blood-red fingernails, when she freezes, her spine arching and her hair rising. Her mother comes rushing in at the clatter of metal colliding with floor tile, lips white at her daughter's blank expression.

"What's wrong?" she begs, tugging at the thin shoulders.

_Ivory-colored hair piled in a neat bun, a large hooked nose, that wart, and her eyes, her eyes wiped colorless with time-_

"Chihiro?" her mother implores, and Zeniba fades.

Her eyes are impossibly wide when she finally answers and her voice trembles.

"But I thought I'd never forget."

**[365]**

It was not a dream.

It was not a dream.

It was not a dream.

It was not.

**[344]**

White dragons with sea-foam green hair. Floating masks with forlorn faces. Rotund mice with intelligent eyes. A dark boiler room. Dozens and dozens of simple paper cutouts.

Her father frowns, lowering his fist poised to knock on the open door. She's hunched over the floor, meticulously painting. He watches her for a few moments, then clears his throat. She shows no sign of noticing him. He peers around her to look at the watercolor painting.

"Is that a bathhouse?" he asks.

She doesn't look up. "Yes."

He nods slowly. "And the rest of these?"

She pauses for a fraction of a moment and he swears the sketches quiver. "Art projects."

He notes the tremor in her voice and leaves shortly after.

**[110]**

_What if-_

_Hush._

_But what if-_

_Hush._

_What if he can't-_

_Hush, hush, hush._

_But-_

_He will. I know it._

**[32]**

It's chilly on the school roof. She wants to slap herself and pay attention, but that's all she can think about.

"So, would you… would you maybe…"

Was the sky as blue here as it was over there? She felt for sure that there weren't half as many colors in this world. She'd seen so many more in Yubaba's nursery and the garden where she'd followed-

"Chihiro-san?"

She stares and he stares back. She holds his gaze until he flushes, dropping his eyes to his shoes and mumbling something. She wonders what it is that he sees in her skinny knees and tight ponytail. What could possibly be so appealing about her steadfast words and determined gait?

"Sorry," she says, feeling the sharpness of her words cut her tongue. "I like someone else."

**[7]**

The floor always needs cleaning.

Back and forth and back and forth. The rhythmic thuds her feet make with the polished floor beat in tandem with the faint gasps of boiler steam she can hear from behind the walls.

"Faster," the floor manager hisses, and she pushes harder.

But it makes no difference— she's always too slow compared to the other girls with their pink sleeves and synchronized limbs. She's too slow, but there's somewhere she needs to be, something she needs to do-

"You shouldn't expect so much from a human girl," someone sneers.

And then she hears the shrill cry of a pig and her fingers slip. She lets out a muffled cry of pain as her arms give out and her eyes flare open when she realizes that her fingers are clawing at her headboard.

**[1]**

"You'll have to be patient."

Her new bedroom is bigger than her old one, but it doesn't look that way with all the boxes heaped about and her bed shoved against a far corner. She paces around the cardboard and newspaper wrappings, trying to make as little noise as possible. Pale, weak sunbeams filter through morning clouds and her windows, highlighting the wilted bouquet and crumpled note resting on the sill.

"You'll have to be patient," she repeats.

She hadn't dreamt that night.

**[0]**

_Turn! Turn! Turn around! Turn around and look, no don't go, don't go, don't go…_

Her shoes go left, right, left, right. Her heart beats _no, no, no, no. _Her lips say they'll meet again.

And her heart promised to wait, so she does.

**[ever after]**

* * *

><p><strong>this was just an experiment for me, a look at a (really sad) possibility after the end of "Spirited Away." I know it's a bit lacking and patchy, but I wrote what I wanted and felt that I shouldn't try and change it too much. I hope you all enjoyed it, be sure to let me know your thoughts!<strong>


End file.
